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Day 13 – Low on Battery

After a few disturbances in the night (Imodium was consumed…) we made it onto the bus to first pick up Clem and then to head to Tshesebe which is 10km from the Zimbabwe border. Jethro seemed to be coping with his ankle and my gut seemed to be holding on to the Weetabix I had for breakfast so we made it there in one piece. Today we were filming our video – ‘A Day in the Life of CWB’ – which has kept us all amused, especially when Ian was involved. Hopefully this video will be up on the site within the next few days.

We arrived at Tshesebe around 9am and headed off to the Kgtla (pronounced Coat-luh) which is the equivalent of the village hall. Despite only having a population of 2000 citizens there were offices, council rooms and even a horseshoe-shaped assortment of wooden spikes which is where punishment used to be handed out to unruly citizens who have wronged the village. There was also a village chief, who we were honoured to have met and seemed keen to hear about our exploits in his village. Although I was disappointed not to see him wearing a Red Indian headress and mixing hallucinogenic herbs, it was interesting to see the Batswana take on local politics. His name was Buchanee, a young man smartly dressed and seemingly well respected by everyone we spoke to. He reminded me a bit of Kananga from the film ‘Live and Let Die’, albeit a bit less sinister than the Bond villain. Ian presented him with an old tattered England ODI shirt which I’m sure he was delighted with.

In the Kgtla

The local playing field was our classroom for the day and we had around 30 adults to coach in the sweltering heat. Although obviously we’d like to coach as many people as possible some of our students seemed to be wandering off and not paying as much attention as those we had taught earlier in the week. Nevertheless there were some promising cricket coaches there and it was also very encouraging to see some coaches from the Spring trip join us and even help coach the kids we had in the afternoon. It was also great to have Stan from Top Banana there helping and Clem was his usual charismatic self, assisting us and keeping spirit levels high.

After a lunch of burgers and Minute Maid we ploughed on as kids dripped in from the surrounding schools around 1.30pm. Chris meanwhile did some investigating on the local HIV/AIDS testing centre which he will describe in his Week 2 Reflection article.

Chris’s Results

Some spots of rain teased at a shower but in the end the clouds passed by and the sun came back out to play. Each group (Scott/Bronwen on bowling, David/Chris on the drive, Graham/Jethro on fielding, Ian/Cal on the game) had around 40 kids so we estimated a total of 160 children today in total. David has now mastered the super-selfie while Bronwen was once again to the rescue as Welfare Officer when one girl got a nosebleed.

Although my arms are a little medium-rare this evening it wasn’t sunburn but our physical injuries that have begun to take toll on the team the most. The injury list as it stands:

Wear and tear has taken its toll (like my phone today, the team are running low on battery) but we are determined to finish with a bang and have another challenging day ahead in Tshesebe before the prospect of playing cricket with 400 children on Saturday before heading back to Gaborone.

The now infamous Gaffe of the Day award goes to our driver Mokwaledi who drained the battery in the team bus by listening to the radio with the aircon on and then falling asleep. We eventually got Stan to jump the bus after a failed push-start. Graham was a close contender for asking two policewomen to handcuff him but luckily, the key was back at the station. The G Unit bought them an ice cream instead. This could be considered as corruption and the latest rumour is that he is now serving a two month sentence for perverting the course of justice.